To Moustiers Sainte-Marie

July 5, 2003

Leaving Rougon, we biked the length of the Gorges du Verdon along its southern rim. This was our second time riding this incomparable road - the first was a decade earlier on our first tour of Europe- and my memories of the two experiences have blurred together over time. The one clear memory I have from this descent came at the end as we were leaving the gorge and looking with excitement across Lac de Sainte-Croix at the Valensole Plateau, it’s surface a hazy checkerboard of lavender patches.

We ended the day as we did ten years earlier in Moustiers Sainte-Marie, a touristic village set colorfully in the narrow cleft of a ravine. One of the original Most Beautiful Villages in France when the program was initiated in 1982, Moustiers is by now wholly given over to tourism but with its spectacular setting it still makes a fine place to overnight. And it’s the obvious base for cycling the gorge if you’re approaching or leaving from the west. We stayed here again in 2015 on our tour of the French Alps; and if we’re lucky we could find ourselves here again.

The Grand Canyon of the Verdon, a cycling route not to be missed.

Approaching the mouth of the gorge, with Lake Sainte-Croix and the Valensole Plateau coming into view for the first time.

Looking across at the Valensole Plateau. Lavender!

A familiar sight from those years: reading a paperback novel in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, waiting for the dinner hour. Until we bought our Kindle Readers years later, reading material claimed a significant share of our baggage.

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Today's ride: 39 miles (63 km)
Total: 619 miles (996 km)

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